I hope I have made it clear in my posts that I think your feelings and wants are understandable and reasonable. Your post reminded me of something I told my XH, he did not have compassion for me because he did not have compassion for himself. I kind of see that in you. You do not see to see yourself as a reasonable acceptable man who has had to struggle through a lot of cr&p and done very well for himself considering his past. Instead you look at what you do not have and are angry with yourself, maybe? My guess is that learning to be more compassionate toward yourself would relieve a lot of your stress and might even make you look at your wife differently.
As far as finding yourself - I think setting up a time period is a good idea. What process are you planning to use? Is the C going to work with you or has he recommended books, etc.?
Addressing your concerns: 1) If you are truly working on yourself and on getting self-validation, I do not think going too far will be an issue. I assume you will still be a good father to your kids and will keep up your end of the household work with your W. It is not so much that you plan to withdraw from her as much as you are going to let go of the arguing and convincing right now. I also assume that if she wants to ML with you, you will be available!! 2) I am afraid I still have not been clear with my opinion. I do not see any need to suppress your desire for passion. I think that desire is normal. I would suggest not FIXATING on it. Does that make sense? It is not easy but I think that not fixating on it is healthy and doable. Suppression would not be healthy and probably not even be doable. 3) Make finding yourself the sort of activity that includes people in some way. Not necessarily directly but in some way that keeps you sociable!! Even include your wife and kids in some small way. They do not need to know EXACTLY what you are doing. You can just say you are working at being a better CHROME and in the process a better Daddy!
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Chrome, I think you have to be careful about setting aside too much " me" time at this stage in your family life. Your W is a SAHM of little ones, and is probably overwhelmed at times with their needs. She must look to you for relief when you walk through the door. Declaring more space and time for yourself is important, but it's wise not to go overboard here. I think she would feel resentful and abandoned, rather than waking up and noticing the changes within you. Make sure to plan for some couple time: do fun, adult-like, date-sy stuff, where she can connect to being a full person and associate you with pleasure. Perhpas you could get away again ( and not get sick!)
Anyway, this is just a reminder to keep things in balance.
So the next question is, how do I find myself? Obviously the goal is to become comfortable with liking myself, thinking of myself as a good person, being comfortable alone, appreciating the world around me, enjoying life, etc. Is this just something that happens over time?
You wanna get philosophical? You poor, poor man.
I think you find yourself when you accept yourself. When you believe that the Chrome who doesn't like himself is every bit as valuable and worthy and wonderful as a Chrome who does like himself. When you give up thinking of yourself as a good person or a bad person and understand that you're perfect just as you are. If you become a "better" person or a "worse" person, that's okay, too. You would still be just as perfect as you currently are. No more, no less. Appreciating the world around you and enjoying life seem to flow from accepting yourself in this manner.
Ideas like this typically scare me because I have the notion that if I simply accept myself as wonderful just the way I am, no matter what I do, what's my motivation to do anything? So far, just having complete freedom and choices (from a certain perspective...) has been motivation enough.
Stop WaitingFeel EverythingLove AchinglyGive ImpeccablyLet Go
Chrome, I think you need to factor in your wife's current state of mind. It seems to me that she is already a bit adrift in the relationship. A further withdrawal by you might exacerbate the situation.
All the best, -NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
A further withdrawal by you might exacerbate the situation.
I may have missed something. I interpreted that Chrome was not backing off being a father and husband. I thought he was going to take time off from worrying so much about the relationship and put that energy toward himself. I thought it could help him and ease tension in the relationship.
I do agree that watching and gaging her reaction would be a good idea. My thought was that putting some focus on himself might actually relieve his wife of the pressure that it seems she may be feeling. He mentioned that when he brings up wanting a better relationship his wife hears that as code for her needing to change herself.
In fact I wonder if it would be worthwhile for him to at least mention it to her, without a request for anything from her. Just give her the knowledge that he is looking at himself.
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
Chrome wrote; "The possibility strongly exists that she will feel the vacuum and step in to try to fill it."
I think that creating any additional "vacuum" in the relationship will unbalance it in a negative way.
What I do think that needs to happen, is for Chrome to stand his ground, and figure out who he is concurrently.
He can start by figuring out what it really means to be a father to his kids, and what kind of man it takes to be a good father. He can figure out what kind of husband he wants to be and make a plan to become that.
There are many ways for a person to build their confidence in-situ.
All the best, -NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
Got just a few minutes before bedtime (trying to always go to bed together) and wanted to clarify.
I don't want to create a vacuum in the sense of pulling back on my fatherly/husbandly activities. I want to create a vacuum from the scaling back of R talks. I just feel that my heart and mind are too scattered to make good progress with these talks, and I think the evidence backs up this assertion in that little or no progress has been made overall. I am in no way going to back off being a good father. I know I am a good father and I will continue to be. The obvious love and respect my kids show toward me is all the proof I need that I am on the right track there. I have lots of plans for this summer with the kids (camping for the first time with the twins, family vacation, lots of daddy outings, teaching them sports and starting their formal education).
I don't feel confident that I know how to be a good husband. I think I have been for the most part (with a notable exception of course shadowing everything that I do) but I'm sure I have made a lot of mistakes of which I am only partially aware. I do think I need to figure out how to be a man as a pre or corequisite to being a good husband. For example, my W used to always ask me to accompany her to the bathroom to talk while she showered just before bed. Frankly, the envirnoment is not very comfortable (steamy room, no place to sit comfortably, noisy, have to talk loudly to be heard) so I began during my withdrawal period to refuse for various excuses. She stopped asking a few years ago. Now I would love for that chance to bond, to have that obvious desire to be with me shown. So my question is, do I just take the initiative and restart our nightly conversations or would that be breaking some rules about good manly/husbandly behavior. Believe it or not, I really struggle with crap like this all the time. Maybe everyone can more clearly see how much work I need to do (as if you didn't know already).
OK. Off to bed. Still have lots to do
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
This is in response to what you wrote on runner26.2's thread.
I am listening to a book called "Go put your strengths to work" and yesterday I listened to his discussion on some interesting points which I want to follow up. Bear with me because I am still trying to figure out what he means, what I think about the idea, and how to apply this concept to my life much less anyone else's!
His concept is that your personality is basically a constant and that rather then changing as you go through life you more or less become more YOU than change. He refers to studies and a book by Judith Rich Harris. His concept is based that personality is 45 -50% in-born and the other 50 -55% comes from various components but NOT from your parents or your placement about your siblings. These numbers are calculated partly from studies on identical twins raised in different families. What I am trying to wrap my head around is the difference between personality and behavior. Because I think I can "buy" his concept because I can see how your core personality DOES NOT change however I think your BEHAVIOR is affected by your parents and placement in your family. I also think your behavior CAN be changed. I read his previous book Now discover your strengths and took the test. At first I was surprised that "responsibility" did not show up as on of my top 5 strengths. I am a typical oldest child in that I had to take on responsibility etc. However when I read the definition and description of "responsibility" in the author's context, I could see that it was NOT part of my personality at all. So I guess I would say that I behaved and still behave in a responsible way although responsibility is not a personality trait that I have. Does that make sense??? I will work on better descriptions!
For me this concept ties into your thoughts about what you really want to change about yourself, your wife and your relationship. I am still figuring it out so I am not exactly sure how it ties in (sorry, I am SOOOO much better at throwing ideas out than at actually KNOWING what will FIX everything!!) I think that if you can be more focused on behavior issues rather than personality issues you can and will be more likely to make changes which give you the life and relationship you want. I do not think you really want your wife to change or even yourself to change as much as you want to be MORE of yourself with your wife and you want her to be MORE of herself with you. By being yourselves, your marriage might not be "easier" but it should be more real, more authentic and more passionate which IS what you want, right?
It also kind of ties into Burgbud's comments to you yesterday. He made a comment that he worried somehow that if he was okay with himself JUST as he is then what would drive him to be a BETTER Burgbud? I really believe that I am and have been a self-validating and self-assured person all my life. I do like myself for whom I am. That DOES NOT mean that I never doubt myself, never get down on myself, do not have a drive to get better, do not get frustrated with myself and my obvious flaws, etc. I mean a year ago a business acquaintance, to whom I had opened up to about some things in my life, wrote me an e-mail where she gave a quick "You are a good person" line at the end. I broke down in TEARS when I read that. I still have my moments where it hits me, "Am I a good person?" I cannot say that I always fully believe I am. My expectation is that I will NEVER have full confidence of that. What I will not do, though, is let that self-doubt derail my life. EVERYONE has self-doubts and in the end I guess I have compassion for myself in my down moments which is what gives me the strength to build myself back up again and move forward.
Well if nothing else, I have hopefully given you the reassurance that you are not the only one who can throw out posts which are not fully developed. I wanted to get this out though so others can think about these concepts and what they think of them.
Also I thought the idea about Now I would love for that chance to bond, to have that obvious desire to be with me shown. So my question is, do I just take the initiative and restart our nightly conversations or would that be breaking some rules about good manly/husbandly behavior.
With your description of why you stopped this lovely routine with your wife, IMO, I would go ahead and restart it if she seems open to it.
IMO the behavior Blackfoot meant is that IF in order to meet your wife's request, you had to set aside something that you HAD to do for your CORE being - That would be too placating, etc. On the other hand if the behavior is doing something supportive for your wife even if you do not understand it or it is inconvenient or uncomfortable, THAT is being a supportive husband and a strong man. Your description of why you stopped this nice routine was because you didn't LIKE it. Not that it was interfering with something you NEEDED.
To be explicit, IMHO, manly behavior is when you act as supportive, caring and loving toward your wife as you can WITHOUT sacrificing core needs for yourself. (This is why I think this concept is difficult for you. If you truly do not know yourself, then you do not know where to place the boundaries. SOmetimes you make make artificially narrow boundaries and other times you can let your boundaries be trampled. That seems normal if you do not really understand them) I think that is kind of Dieda's point. If you have a purpose in your life outside of your wife, that is what keeps you grounded and focused from losing yourself. Then you can be free to support your wife in whatever way you can as long as it does not take you from your purpose. That is why I get frustrated at simplistic arguments that a man giving into his wife on certain things automatically makes him weak. To me it is more dependent on how his overall life is in balance and not whether or not he goes out with the guys to a strip club, joins the golf league, goes to bed at the same time as his wife, etc.
I am not sure how clear this is but I really have to get back to work!!
But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? ~Albert Camus
I do understand what you are saying to me and thanks for all your thoughts.
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Because I think I can "buy" his concept because I can see how your core personality DOES NOT change however I think your BEHAVIOR is affected by your parents and placement in your family.
So is the thought that everyone has the same basic core personality but people's behavior is different based on life experiences?
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So I guess I would say that I behaved and still behave in a responsible way although responsibility is not a personality trait that I have. Does that make sense??
Yes it does actually. At my core I am a very HD person, but I behaved in ways to suppress that due to the situations I have been in in my life.
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I think that if you can be more focused on behavior issues rather than personality issues you can and will be more likely to make changes which give you the life and relationship you want. I do not think you really want your wife to change or even yourself to change as much as you want to be MORE of yourself with your wife and you want her to be MORE of herself with you. By being yourselves, your marriage might not be "easier" but it should be more real, more authentic and more passionate which IS what you want, right?
This makes sense in a way. I am having a hard time differentiating personality traits with behavior in some instances though. For example I do want the relationship to be more authentic and passionate. But if it is only at the behavior level I could see how it might create problems down the road. In other words, its like the difference between someone who is a true believer, and someone who goes to church regularly because they feel obligated. Does that make any sense?
I don't expect marriage to be easy, but there do seem to be some fundamental things that you just have to agree upon or else it is uneccesarily hard. Cobra's list a few posts ago to me had some good ones, MrsNOPs had a post awhile back that had a list of what she wanted out of an R that was really good. I think it is the agreement on those issues that makes the R authentic and can lead to passion.
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I still have my moments where it hits me, "Am I a good person?" I cannot say that I always fully believe I am. My expectation is that I will NEVER have full confidence of that. What I will not do, though, is let that self-doubt derail my life. EVERYONE has self-doubts and in the end I guess I have compassion for myself in my down moments which is what gives me the strength to build myself back up again and move forward.
That is what I don't have as often as I need, compassion for myself. I have "pit moments" superimposed upon the normal ups and downs. I accept that life will not be fair and nice to me all the time.
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Well if nothing else, I have hopefully given you the reassurance that you are not the only one who can throw out posts which are not fully developed. I wanted to get this out though so others can think about these concepts and what they think of them.
ROFL. You and I are certainly not the only ones who "throw out posts."
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IMO the behavior Blackfoot meant is that IF in order to meet your wife's request, you had to set aside something that you HAD to do for your CORE being - That would be too placating, etc. On the other hand if the behavior is doing something supportive for your wife even if you do not understand it or it is inconvenient or uncomfortable, THAT is being a supportive husband and a strong man. Your description of why you stopped this nice routine was because you didn't LIKE it. Not that it was interfering with something you NEEDED.
I do get this in a way. Somebody gave a pretty good example about the W asking the H about curtains that follows your logic well (who was that again). In my own life, I did something along those lines over the past few days. As you know my W has been sick. She is finally starting to feel better, but she was supposed to go on a vacation with her college friends this weekend, which meant flying (not the best idea with a sinus infection). I drove her this morning to meet her friend (one hour away) and they were going to carpool to the nearest airport (another hour away). She said this morning that she was feeling well enough to go. I told her that if we get to her friends house and she changes her mind, I'll bring her back no problem. If she gets to the airport and decides she doesn't want to go, just give me a call and I'll cancel all my meetings today and come get her. She protested, but I had already forseen that and had already made a contingency plan for others to handle my tasks today. She calmed down and wonder of wonders just said "thank you." Amazing.
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This is why I think this concept is difficult for you. If you truly do not know yourself, then you do not know where to place the boundaries. SOmetimes you make make artificially narrow boundaries and other times you can let your boundaries be trampled. That seems normal if you do not really understand them
This is a good point, I don't understand boundaries as well as I should. I have been thinking about them a lot, but still can't get my mind wrapped around the concept in a logical way.
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I think that is kind of Dieda's point. If you have a purpose in your life outside of your wife, that is what keeps you grounded and focused from losing yourself. Then you can be free to support your wife in whatever way you can as long as it does not take you from your purpose. That is why I get frustrated at simplistic arguments that a man giving into his wife on certain things automatically makes him weak. To me it is more dependent on how his overall life is in balance and not whether or not he goes out with the guys to a strip club, joins the golf league, goes to bed at the same time as his wife, etc.
Makes sense. I wonder, do I have a purpose in my life outside my W? I certainly have a job that I love, lots of other things that I do. But a ***PURPOSE***? Hmmm.
Chrome
"Recollect me darlin, raise me to your lips, two undernourished egos, four rotating hips"
What about all of those young people you affect in your classes. You would be amazed at the lives a teacher touches and how you will affect their lives going forward.
That IMPO, is a great PURPOSE.
A few years back (oh 6-7 or so) a guy got in touch with me through classmates.com. At the time I barely remembered him when he e-mailed me, but I did vaguely. We eventually e-mailed (and still catch up once a year). I had NO idea, but I was someone who really affected him...even back in high school. He was what you'd consider a nerd, not athletic, really awkward, really smart etc. Anyway...I remember him from one of my classes, but apparently I had him in several. I was shocked to hear from him that even way back then I made a difference (and didn't intend to or know it). Because "I" was the only girl he knew who talked to him, who would volunteer to have him as a partner on projects, who didn't snub him or ignore him, who was actually nice to him, who didn't make fun of him....and as he said "was really pretty too!" He told me that because I was this way with him in high school he learned that not all girls were the way he thought they were (stuck up, mean, and wouldn't have anything to do with him...he really was picked on quite a bit). Anyway...that has always stayed with me. I was really stunned to think that someone from so long ago remembered ME. I mean, I wasn't popular, I wasn't outgoing...I was actually pretty quiet and shy. So I wouldn't have expected to be remembered. Not only did he remember me but I made an impact on his life. You never know what your purpose may be. Looking back on my life my purpose seems to be helping others, making others feel good/comfortable about themselves, even way back then...that's why I've chosen to go get my Masters now (enlightenment of what my purpose may be at nearly 40 LOL)
Now, if I could do that so long ago....think about all the lives you impact now in class everyday. All the students you see go in and out of your classroom every year. You have a love for the universe that you pass on to others...who in turn, have the power to affect the world. You may NEVER know how you affect a person's life...but you will. OR, someday...you may get an e-mail, phone call, or knock at your door from a student from the past as well....or even a "dedication" in a book. You just never know in your line of work.
